South Africa: The Legendary Story of the Colonel Potter Will Get You Hooked On the History of Fly-Fishing in SA

27 June 2022
Daily Maverick (Johannesburg)
analysis By Shaun Smillie

For close to 50 years, it remained the Potter family's best-kept secret. A secret forged from a twist of a chicken feather, a couple of turns of chenille yarn and a good measure of skill.

Added too are the two cock feathers that make the tail and if all is done right, it transforms into a deadly trout fly. It is called the Colonel Potter and its inventor, Dr Charles Potter, used it to take trophy fish in the streams that cut through eastern Mpumalanga.

When Potter and his two sons went on fishing trips across the country, their fly went too and it didn't disappoint. It kept taking big fish, in the high mountain dams and rivers of the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the eastern Free State.

When Potter's son Luke was 11 he won the South African Fly Fishing Association cup after he pulled a five-and-half-pound (about 2.5kg) trout from the Spekboom River in Mpumalanga. The big fish fell to a Colonel Potter.

But in January 2019 tragedy struck the Potter family when Luke, their eldest son, was killed in a terrorist attack in Nairobi, Kenya. Following the death of his son, Potter decided he would reveal the...

Read the full story on Daily Maverick.

Tagged:
Copyright © 2022 Daily Maverick. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.

AllAfrica publishes around 400 reports a day from more than 100 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.

Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. To address comments or complaints, please Contact us.